Nvidia aims for record quarter

GK104 is a performance market chip. In the real world Nvidia would be selling this chip for up to $299 and since AMD’s $549 card is scoring close to GK104 based GTX 680 Nvidia went for a $549 price tag.

You can imagine Nvidia’s margin on these cards. With this in mind, this could mean that Nvidia’s next quarter could be one of best in the company’s recent history and the fact that Nvidia scored a deal with Google and Asus for Nexus tablet powered by its Tegra 3 SoC will definitely help.

Tegra 3 will get to quite a few high-end phones as well and dual GK104 will also come in Nvidia’s next financial quarter. Let’s not forget 300+ Ivy Bridge Kepler notebook design wins that will drive generate quite a few bucks as well.

When you combine all this, we believe that Nvidia might have a very good quarter ahead and the whole of 2012 could end up as a golden year for the company. Let’s see how this plays out, but from our perspective, considering all the pros and cons, it all looks good. We are also getting similarly optimistic predictions from multiple industry sources that prefer to remain unknown.

After a slow start with the original Tegra, and to some extent the Tegra 2, after the underwhelming Fermi generation, Nvidia seems to be back on track. However, Nvidia is also facing stiffer competition than ever. AMD’s discrete graphics are becoming increasingly competitive with each generation, both AMD and Intel are eating into the low-end market with powerful integrated graphics and the cut-throat ARM market is already overcrowded. On the upside, Windows 8 is the next frontier for ARM chipmakers, including Nvidia, and it could be a game-changer.